What a discouraging weekend for the country. Hundreds of white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia on Friday night, carrying torches and chanting racist and anti-Semitic slogans. The next day, police mostly stood by while racists (some displaying swastika flags or calling out the Nazi slogan “blood and soil”) clashed with counter-protesters during “the largest public gathering of white supremacists in decades.” One of those anti-fascist protesters, Heather Heyer, was killed after a car struck her while driving into a crowd, allegedly intentionally. Virginia state troopers Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper-Pilot Berke M.M. Bates died in a helicopter crash while assisting in the law enforcement response to the “Unite the Right” rally.

Many Republican officials, including Iowa’s top GOP leaders, condemned this weekend’s acts of domestic terrorism and racist hatred. But President Donald Trump–long an inspiration to white nationalists and neo-Nazis–deliberately avoided calling out the instigators in Charlottesville.

Politicians who enthusiastically campaigned for Trump and continue to support him must demand much more.

More Democrats are running for Iowa’s statewide and federal offices than at any other time in at least four decades. I’m excited to watch so many strong candidates make their case to be elected governor, secretary of state, or to Congress in all three Republican-held U.S. House districts.

Contested primaries are mostly good for political parties, I believe. For too many election cycles, Iowa Democrats tended to coalesce around one candidate early on. A battle for the nomination forces contenders to work harder and sharpen the message. With more campaigns trying to identify supporters and get them to the polls, I expect a record-setting turnout for Iowa Democrats in June 2018.

The process will also drive more activists to attend next year’s precinct caucuses and county conventions, since conventions may be needed to select Democratic nominees for governor and in the third Congressional district, if no candidate receives 35 percent of the vote in the primary.

The only downside to a competitive primary is the risk that the campaign could become intensely negative, leaving some of the most engaged activists feeling angry and alienated from one another. Case in point: some people are still arguing about Hillary v. Bernie more than a year later.

Fortunately, Democrats can prevent that destructive dynamic from playing out.

Vowing to “put people over politics” and work for policies to help northwest Iowa families, business owner and Spencer City Council member Leann Jacobsen became the second Democratic candidate in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district today.

Leann said her priorities if elected would be to create jobs and improve rural communities in the state so young people are more inclined to stay. Building on her record of creating economic opportunity and improving the quality of life in Spencer, Leann pledged to put people first by focusing on job growth, improving education, fighting for healthcare, saving natural resources, helping the middle class, and supporting small businesses.

Leann was integral in starting the Riverfront Farmers Market and StartupCity Spencer, a business incubator that helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses. After nearly 20 years with AT&T, Leann launched Capitol Gains, an advocacy firm focused on business, economic development, arts and culture, and child welfare. She then went on to serve as the President of the Technology Association Iowa, which helps grow and develop small businesses and advance Iowa’s reputation as a technology state. She currently serves on the advisory board of Spencer Municipal Hospital.

The common name for today’s featured wildflowers comes from a doctor who “prescribed the plant as an effective laxative.” Some American Indian tribes used the plant medicinally long before Dr. Culver was on the scene in the 18th century, but in a time-honored tradition, our culture didn’t give them the credit for discovering its properties.

Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. I’ve never heard anyone call this plant by any other name, but apparently it is sometimes known as Black root or Bowman’s root.

It “tolerates most soils” and “full sun to partial shade,” so “can make an excellent back border specimen in the home garden.” Culver’s root flowers attract many kinds of pollinators, including bees, wasps, butterflies, and moths.

I took all of the enclosed photographs on a restored prairie in Dallas County.

Pete D’Alessandro would be a first-time candidate if he joins the large group of Democrats challenging Representative David Young in Iowa’s third Congressional district. But no one in the field has more Iowa campaign experience than this longtime political operative.

D’Alessandro has been thinking seriously about this race for months. In a recent telephone interview, he told me he has set Saturday, August 26–the date of the Iowa Democratic Party’s third district workshop in Atlantic–as “the day to fish or cut bait.”

He also discussed the points he would raise as a candidate and how Democrats can accomplish “real change,” capitalizing on the activism that fueled Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

Democrat Phil Miller won today’s special election in Iowa House district 82 by 4,021 votes to 3,324 for Republican Travis Harris (53.8 percent to 44.5 percent). It was a larger margin of victory than Miller’s good friend Curt Hanson managed in his 2009 special election, the first state legislative race after the Iowa Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling in Varnum v Brien. The results will be a morale boost for Democrats, since Donald Trump won nearly 57.8 percent of the vote in the House district 82 precincts last year, compared to just 36.4 percent for Hillary Clinton.

The 7,476 votes cast in House district 82, according to the unofficial tally, is roughly three times higher than the turnout for the special elections earlier this year in heavily Republican House district 22 and heavily Democratic House district 89. The major parties spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television commercials and direct mail to mobilize supporters of Miller and Harris (more on that spending below). On the other hand, turnout for this race was a bit lower than voter participation in Hanson’s special election win eight years ago.

Miller’s home base of Jefferson County, containing the population centers of Fairfield and Vedic City, carried him to victory.

Registered Democrats have returned 1,153 more ballots than Republicans in Iowa House district 82, as of today. The news will encourage supporters of Democratic nominee Phil Miller, though a strong election-day turnout by Republicans could still win the race for the GOP’s Travis Harris. In the high-profile 2009 special Iowa House election covering some of the same territory, Democrat Curt Hanson led by about 1,000 early votes and ended up winning by 107.

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Judging by the unofficial results from Davis County, posted after polls closed, the person who read me those numbers over the phone appears to have transposed the Democratic and Republican totals. I have switched the numbers in the table, which decreased the overall Democratic absentee ballot lead in the district to 1,025.

Click here for the rest of the election results and my take on Miller’s big win.

Michael Fitzgerald has seen tight budgets come and go in his 35 years as state treasurer. He is increasingly concerned that Iowa may have trouble making ends meet next spring.

Only a few months into her new job, Governor Kim Reynolds plans to reject Fitzgerald’s considered opinion. The political gamble allows her to downplay the severity of Iowa’s fiscal situation for now. However, her strategy could backfire if a cash-flow problem blows up just before the final stretch of next year’s primary campaign.

Vowing to fight for every vote to be counted and to “say no to making it harder and more expensive to vote,” Jim Mowrer launched his campaign for secretary of state on August 3. He is well-known to many Democrats as Representative Steve King’s 2014 opponent in the fourth Congressional district and Representative David Young’s challenger in the third district last year. Follow me after the jump for more on Mowrer’s case for his candidacy and against Secretary of State Paul Pate, including highlights from an interview with Bleeding Heartland.

Mowrer will have at least one competitor in the Democratic primary. Deidre DeJear launched her campaign on August 6. She’s on the web, Facebook, and Twitter. I recently spoke to DeJear about her background and goals and have a post in progress on her secretary of state campaign. Iowa Starting Line profiled her here.

State Representative Chris Hall of Sioux City has not ruled out the secretary of state race either, he told me in late July.

I’ve reached out to several county auditors who had floated the idea of challenging Pate in 2018. Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald told me he is no longer considering a run for higher office. Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert announced on Facebook on August 3 that Mowrer “has my full backing.” UPDATE: Two more county auditors endorsed Mowrer on August 7. Scroll to the end of this post for details.

Nathan Blake, who had been thinking about this race, confirmed two weeks ago that he has decided against it.

Because I believe the most dangerous thing about the Trump Republican Party is its disdain for democracy and its corresponding voter suppression efforts, I had been planning to run for Secretary of State in 2018. However, in May Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller asked me to take on a new role as a Deputy Attorney General. I believe I can do the most good over the next few years working for AG Miller to stand up for the rule of law, keep Iowans safe, and protect consumers. While I won’t be running for anything this cycle, I’ll continue to fight for voting rights and other progressive policies and I’ll evaluate opportunities to serve in elected office in the future.

Bill Brauch likewise considered running for secretary of state but will not be a candidate for any office next year. Instead, he told me, he will continue volunteering as the Iowa Democratic Party’s Third District Chair.

Many posts about Iowa’s 2018 campaigns for state and federal offices are in progress, but for this weekend, I want to focus on elections happening in 2017. The weather looks almost perfect for the last few days of GOTV in Jefferson, Davis, and Van Buren counties, where voters will choose a successor to State Representative Curt Hanson this Tuesday. The House district 82 special election may not foreshadow what happens in next year’s legislative races, but the outcome could shape the media narrative about whether Democrats or Republicans have momentum in small-town and rural Iowa, which in turn could influence people thinking about running for the state House or Senate in 2018. If you’ve been knocking on doors or phone banking in House district 82, please share your stories in the comments.

August 3 was the filing deadline for the September 12 school board elections across Iowa. In future years, school board and local elections will be held on the same day of November in odd-numbered years. Proponents say the shift will increase turnout. John Deeth isn’t a fan of the change.

Candidates for city council or mayor will need to submit nominating papers between August 28 and September 21 in most Iowa towns, which don’t hold primaries before the November local election. (The filing period for local candidates runs from August 14 to 31 in cities that sometimes hold primary as well as general elections for local offices; this document explains more.)

Anyone thinking about running for school board or city office should read Lauren Whitehead’s advice on waging a successful local campaign.

Iowa’s most closely-watched city elections include the Cedar Rapids mayoral race, where Monica Vernon is one of several well-known local figures hoping to succeed Ron Corbett, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor. (Former State Representative Tyler Olson considered that race but decided against it.)

Four candidates have announced in Des Moines City Council Ward 3, where longtime incumbent Christine Hensley opted to retire: Josh Mandelbaum, Michael Kiernan, Chris Draper, and Abshir Omar. Mandelbaum has the most backing from local political leaders and organized labor. CORRECTION: Draper recently dropped out of the city council race.

Quite a few central Iowa incumbents don’t yet have challengers, as far as I know, including the mayors of West Des Moines and Urbandale.

I expect an intense city council campaign in Windsor Heights, where some residents are outraged that sidewalks are finally being installed on three streets near two elementary schools. You probably don’t understand why hundreds of people in this small suburb fiercely oppose making the neighborhood more walkable. I can’t explain it either, even after living through several of these battles during the past fifteen years. Most residents of the Des Moines metro area find sidewalks convenient but otherwise unremarkable. For whatever reason, multiple city council races in Windsor Heights have turned into a referendum on the sidewalks question. Even though the city is paying the full cost of the installations this summer, I expect a strong backlash from the anti-sidewalk contingent in November.

When Iowa Republicans destroyed all meaningful collective bargaining rights for public employees earlier this year, they also enacted major union-busting provisions, such as frequent re-certification elections for public-sector labor unions, under rules making it difficult and costly for a union to remain certified. Those elections will begin in September Brianne Pfannenstiel reported this week in the Des Moines Register. Excerpts from that story are after the jump.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

Iowa Republicans apparently could not find anything of substance to criticize in Dr. Phil Miller, the Democratic candidate for House district 82. With less than a week to go before the August 8 special election, the GOP has replaced their first attack ad–a misleading spot seeking to stir up fear of transgender students–with a new hit piece tying Miller to “liberal special interests in Washington” including U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Declaring that “economic concentration is the fundamental issue of our time,” Austin Frerick launched his candidacy for Congress in Iowa’s third Congressional district today.

In a news release, he said, “For too long, agricultural monopolies like Monsanto have been milking Iowa’s farmers with high seed costs. I’m tired of watching career politicians stand aside while huge corporations push around average Iowans.”

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett fleshed out his case against Governor Kim Reynolds as a manager of state finances this week, saying she is behaving like former Democratic Governor Chet Culver. During the 2010 campaign, then-candidates Terry Branstad and Reynolds derided Culver as “Big Debt Chet.” Now, Corbett asserts, “instead of learning from Governor Culver, she’s mirroring from Governor Culver.”

As the leading GOP rival to Reynolds, Corbett will make fiscal policy a central issue in his gubernatorial campaign. But is Reynolds really on track to borrow more money for the state than Iowa’s last Democratic governor did?

Late summer wildflowers are coming on strong across Iowa. During the past three weeks, I’ve seen the first flowers of 2017 on brown-eyed Susan, common evening primrose, goldenrod, ironweed, cutleaf coneflower, common sneezeweed, white snakeroot, yellow jewelweed, and even New England aster, which usually appears later and continues to produce flowers until the first frost.

Today’s featured plant is nearing the end of its blooming period for the year. Winged loosestrife (Lythrum alatum) can be found in a variety of wet habitats, such as “moist black soil prairies, marshes, fens, borders of lakes and ponds, areas along rivers and drainage ditches, and low-lying ground along railroads.” Sometimes called winged lythrum, this species is native to most of North America from the Rocky Mountains to the east coast.

I took all of the enclosed photos between late June and late July on lower ground in the prairie restoration area along the Windsor Heights trail, behind the Iowa Department of Natural Resources building on Hickman Road.

Note: winged loosestrife can be confused with purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), which is “now ranked among the most highly problematic invasive species in North America.” At the end of this post I’ve included two pictures of purple loosestrife. If this attractive plant is growing on your property, I recommend pulling it up.

On August 8, Iowans in three counties will elect either Democrat Phil Miller or Republican Travis Harris to succeed the late State Representative Curt Hanson. Both major parties are spending more on the House district 82 race than on any other special state legislative campaign in years.

Voter interest is relatively high. The number of early ballots requested here already exceeds the total number of votes cast in each of the last two races to fill Iowa House vacancies (House district 22 in June and House district 89 in January).

Follow me after the jump for the absentee ballot numbers as of a week before election day, and the latest television commercials for and against Miller and Harris. Spoiler alert: if you guessed that Republicans would run a misleading ad about transgender bathrooms, you were right.

Iowa Senate Republicans voted last Friday to make no changes in the caucus’s staff or leadership, following a sexual harassment lawsuit that led to a $2.2 million verdict against the state. Instead, Secretary of the Senate Charlie Smithson will internally review allegations that came to light through Kirsten Anderson’s lawsuit, with the chamber’s number two Republican, Senate President Jack Whitver, “overseeing the investigation.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix has claimed repeatedly that any problems relating to a hostile work environment were resolved soon after he took charge of the Senate GOP caucus in late 2012. But court testimony indicated that neither senators nor top Republican staffers ever asked others employed by the caucus whether they had observed sexual harassment or other offensive workplace conduct. Although Dix admitted hearing about matters “I was not aware of” during the trial, he still insists Anderson was fired in May 2013 solely because of her work product. Meanwhile, the current Iowa Senate Republican communications staffers occupy themselves with who-knows-what, as opposed to keeping the website and social media feeds current.

Dix confirmed that Republicans will not cover the costs of any payout to Anderson, opting to let taxpayers foot the bill for the lack of professionalism that persisted for years.

Republicans’ failure to hold anyone accountable for this debacle underscores the need for independent consultants to take a hard look at what happened in the Senate GOP caucus and how to fix the work environment. Anderson has asked a Polk County District Court to make that happen.

Keeping track of this administration’s scandals would be a full-time job. President Donald Trump has already spent 58 days of his presidency at Trump properties, including 43 days at golf courses. He’s been venting about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who in his view, should have killed the investigation into possible Russian collusion with Trump campaign officials.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke warned Alaska’s senators that Senator Lisa Murkowski’s vote against GOP health care proposals “had put Alaska’s future with the administration in jeopardy.” Richard Painter, former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, said Zinke should be fired for “threatening to abuse his agency’s statutory mandate to hurt Alaska,” adding that the “Interior Department controls vast parts of our Country and cannot be allowed to use federal lands for an extortion racket.”

Trump’s new communications director Anthony Scaramucci conducted an interview that was beyond parody, trying to lean on New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza to reveal a source. Reince Priebus finally got dumped as Trump’s chief of staff. Alexandra Petri noted in her excellent commentary, “Priebus was one of the last Adults In The Room, not that it mattered because everyone in the room was doing exactly as they pleased regardless. His function was largely decorative. What is the point of adult supervision if all you do is sit back and watch as the children set everything on fire?”

The president politicized a Boy Scouts event, upending eight decades of tradition and prompting the national Boy Scouts leader to apologize. Days later, police chiefs around the country condemned the president’s remarks encouraging officers to be rougher with suspects during arrests.

But of all Trump’s outrages this week, none were more disgraceful than his unprovoked attack on transgender people serving our country in the military. After the jump I’ve compiled some of the best and worst reactions from Iowa political figures.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

If you haven’t had a chance to hear directly from the Democrats running for governor, Bleeding Heartland has you covered with audio and highlights from the speeches at Thursday night’s big Hall of Fame event in Des Moines.

Republican efforts to replace the Affordable Care Act suffered a major setback this week, as the U.S. Senate rejected three repeal bills. It may not be the last “near-death experience” for Obamacare, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could bring one of the bills up again. But the Democratic caucus is unmovable on the issue, and it’s not clear what could bring GOP Senators John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, or Susan Collins on board.

Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst voted for all three Republican bills, of course, as everyone following this debate had expected. Grassley told reporters earlier this week that he would support any legislation that could get 51 votes in the Senate, leading to conference negotiations with House Republicans. Though Ernst never expressed it in such terms, she too demonstrated that she was willing to vote for anything her leader brought to the floor, regardless of its costs and impact on Iowans.

Let’s take a quick look at what Iowa’s senators promised to stand for on health care policy, compared to what they voted for when the chips were down.

Sharing Eileen Miller’s photographs is always a treat, especially when she has captured wildflowers I’ve never seen. Common arrowhead, also known as broad-leaf arrowhead or duckroot, can be found across most of the U.S. and Canada.

Of the more than 150 native plants featured for Iowa wildflower Wednesday since 2012, only a few species have separate male and female flowers: bur cucumber, early meadow rue, and purple meadow rue. Thanks to Eileen, we can add arrowhead to that short list today. She wrote all of the text below.

Declaring that “Iowans are tired of being lied to by their elected leaders in order to win their vote,” Eddie Mauro announced today that he may seek the Democratic nomination in the third Congressional district. “It is not enough to vent about these problems or politicians; we need to step up and get involved.”

Mauro ran against State Representative Jo Oldson in last year’s Democratic primary for Iowa House district 41, campaigning as a “fearless advocate” for policies to promote stronger schools and better-paid teachers, a “living wage for all Iowans,” better air and water quality, and more investment in roads and transit.

J.D. Scholten made his Congressional bid official yesterday, promising to stand up for ordinary Iowans and oppose the “divisive politics” that has made Representative Steve King famous across the country. Within an hour of the announcement, King’s previous challenger Kim Weaver endorsed Scholten, one of several Democrats thinking about running in Iowa’s fourth district.

Iowa taxpayers are on the hook for $2.2 million dollars after former Senate Republican communications director Kirsten Anderson won a huge sexual harassment lawsuit last week.

If Senate Republican leaders had any sense of accountability, they would resign, or at least offer to raise money to cover the cost of the verdict, so the general fund doesn’t take another hit while the state budget is in terrible shape.

But Majority Leader Bill Dix refuses to admit any wrongdoing by his colleagues or his staff. He is sticking to his story: “Kirsten Anderson was terminated for her work product and for no other reason.” Dix’s top aide Ed Failor, Jr. has been saying the same thing for years.

The jury didn’t buy the official line, and you shouldn’t either.

How worried are Iowa Republicans about the special election in House district 82?

Worried enough to try to disqualify the Libertarian contender.

Senator Debbie Stabenow, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, has “strong concerns that Sam Clovis is not qualified” to serve as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary for research, extension, and economics, Chuck Abbott reported for Successful Farming on July 21.

Following a less acrimonious campaign than what unfolded in December and January, the Iowa Democratic Party’s State Central Committee voted yesterday for Troy Price to lead the party through 2018. Price brings a lot of relevant experience to the job. He worked in the Vilsack and Culver administrations and led the LGBT advocacy organization One Iowa during the 2010 election campaign, when conservatives targeted Iowa Supreme Court justices and other supporters of marriage equality. Later, he served as political director for Organizing for Iowa, was the Iowa Democratic Party’s executive director during the 2014 election cycle, and was a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s campaign before the 2016 caucuses.

Sentiment against Price was brewing in some private Facebook groups near the beginning of this short campaign for a new statewide party leader. Some activists distrusted him because he had worked for Clinton’s operation and was running Todd Prichard’s gubernatorial campaign until a couple of weeks ago. Those feelings didn’t gain steam, partly because unlike the last time, there was no “Bernie” candidate for state party chair this go around. Also, Price reached out personally to central committee members, and a few activists with clout vouched for him privately and publicly. Robert Becker, who ran the Sanders campaign in Iowa, posted on Friday that Price would be an “outstanding” chair. Jon Neiderbach, the only gubernatorial candidate who was a public supporter of Sanders for president, didn’t endorse anyone to lead the party but said he was confident Price would be even-handed if elected.

I was disappointed to learn that some prominent labor union leaders and supporters conducted a whispering campaign against Julie Stauch, Price’s main rival in this race. The backstory here is a mystery to me; I’ve known Stauch for more than 20 years and never seen any sign that she isn’t staunchly pro-labor. Unions are a powerful constituency within the Iowa Democratic Party, providing financial support and sometimes endorsements that influence primaries. It would be helpful for labor leaders to stick to the case for their preferred candidate, instead of making up reasons not to support someone else. More than a few state central committee members were turned off by the negative campaigning against Stauch, who handled the situation with class.

CORRECTION: It was more than a whispering campaign. A reader pointed me to this public thread in which Iowa State Education Association President Tammy Wawro said, “Labor is with Troy, we have no time to waste,” and AFSMCE’s longtime President Danny Homan added, “The only hope for the IDP is Troy Price.” Pressed on their reasoning, Wawro and Homan both mentioned Price being at the Capitol during debates over key anti-labor legislation this year–as if Iowa Democrats who were not physically at the statehouse on those days don’t share the same views. That kind of litmus test won’t be helpful as Price tries to build bridges between different party factions.

I enclose below more links on the State Central Committee meeting and Price’s top priorities as state chair.

This is an open thread: all topics welcome. Readers who want to help select the Democratic nominee for governor should block out Monday, February 5, 2018 on your calendars. The precinct caucuses held that evening will select delegates to county conventions, which on March 24 will select delegates to the district and state conventions. If no gubernatorial candidate receives at least 35 percent of the vote in next year’s primary, the state convention delegates will choose a nominee on June 16. John Deeth has more to say on next year’s caucus-to-convention process.

“This is what I think Democrats need to be talking about,” wrote Austin Frerick yesterday, sharing the link to his latest guest column in the Des Moines Register: “To save rural Iowa, we must end Monsanto’s monopoly.”

Frerick has been warning for some time that economic concentration, especially in the agricultural sector, hurts rural Iowa. He has also highlighted lack of competition and little-known pharmaceutical company practices that keep drug costs inflated, so powerful corporations can overcharge Medicare under the guise of helping sick people.

He may soon be raising those and other issues as a Democratic candidate in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

Although the Democratic field in Iowa’s first Congressional district is not yet set, many activists have already decided which candidate they’d like to see take on Representative Rod Blum next year. So far, State Representative Abby Finkenauer and Thomas Heckroth have won over more prominent Democrats than their competitors. Where things stand:

Dr. Christopher Peters announced today that he will visit all 24 counties in Iowa’s second Congressional district next week “to speak with Iowans about his plans for the 2018 election.” Since I’ve never heard of someone holding more than two dozen events to publicize a decision not to run for office, it’s a safe bet the Coralville surgeon will be launching his second attempt to defeat Democratic Representative Dave Loebsack.

July is a fantastic month for wildflower-spotting in Iowa. In addition to the many plants I mentioned in last week’s post, within the past few days I have seen the first blossoms of 2017 on common evening primrose, blue vervain, and cutleaf coneflower. Near the Windsor Heights trail, I also found two species I don’t recall seeing in past years: monkey flower and catnip. I hope to feature them on an upcoming Wednesday, along with Culver’s root and Joe Pye weed, which are also blooming now in many natural areas.

I took most of the pictures enclosed below in late May at Tipton Prairie in Greene County. Prairie phlox (Phlox pilosa) typically blooms in the late spring or early summer in Iowa. If you see flowers resembling it during July or August, you are probably looking at a cultivar adapted from this species.

Native to much of the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains, this plant is also known as downy phlox or fragrant phlox. Its favored habitats “include moist to mesic black soil prairies, rocky open forests, Bur Oak savannas, sandy Black Oak savannas, limestone glades, thickets, abandoned fields, and prairie remnants along railroads.”

According to the Minnesota Wildflowers website, prairie phlox “does well in a garden, in sunny, sandy soil.” The flowers attract a wide variety of pollinators and sometimes ruby-throated hummingbirds. In Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie, Sylvan Runkel and Dean Roosa wrote, “The Meskwaki made a tea of the leaves and used it as a wash for treating eczema. The same sort of tea was drunk to cure eczema and to purify the blood at the same time. Also, the root was used with several other unspecified plants as part of a love potion.”

Iowa Democrats “need to have a good family fight about what the future of our party’s going to be” and ditch the “canned messages” used in too many losing campaigns, according to State Senator Jeff Danielson. Re-elected to a fourth term in the Iowa Senate last year, Danielson is the highest-profile Democrat still thinking about running in the first Congressional district, where four candidates are already challenging Representative Rod Blum and two others recently ruled out the race. He spoke to Bleeding Heartland this week about his plans and how Democrats can regain the trust of voters who increasingly see our party as out of touch.

Danielson’s critique of the Democratic establishment has much in common with points often raised by Iowans who supported Bernie Sanders for president. But his call for “raging incrementalism” and reaching across the aisle is quite different from the ambitious policy agenda typically viewed on the Sanders wing as the solution to the same problem.

Former Congressional candidate Kim Weaver is still exploring ways to make sure money she raised for her campaign will be used to oppose Republican U.S. Representative Steve King. She discussed several options in a telephone interview with Bleeding Heartland on July 17.

Both major parties are on the air in Iowa House district 82, where voters will choose a new state lawmaker three weeks from today. Whereas the last two special House elections happened in heavily Republican or Democratic districts, the late Curt Hanson represented a politically balanced area. The outcome on August 8 could shape the media narrative about political trends in Iowa and affect candidate recruitment for other competitive statehouse races.

Republicans were first to run negative advertising in most of the 2016 Iowa House and Senate campaigns, but Democrats defending House district 82 have already launched a brutal spot about the Republican candidate’s “tax problem.”

Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker will not challenge U.S. Representative Rod Blum in 2018, he announced this morning.

Only 29 percent of Iowans “mostly support” the “direction Congressional Republicans are heading in health care legislation,” according to a new poll by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom. About 58 percent of the 800 Iowa adults surveyed between July 9 and 13 said they “mostly oppose” the GOP approach to the issue.

Two-time U.S. Senate candidate Tom Fiegen, who left the Democratic Party after last year’s primary election, currently has no plans to run for governor in 2018 as an independent, he told Bleeding Heartland today.

Public policy experts, health care advocacy groups, and insurance industry representatives often don’t agree on how the government should regulate the sector that accounts for roughly one-sixth of our economy. But all have reached the same conclusion about the bill that may come to a vote in the U.S. Senate next week: the latest version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) would cause Americans with chronic or expensive medical conditions to pay much higher rates or lose insurance coverage entirely.

Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst have repeatedly said people with pre-existing conditions would be protected in any Republican bill to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Now, they are poised to break that promise.

Governor Kim Reynolds has said many times that she was a “full partner” in former Governor Terry Branstad’s administration. Other well-placed Iowa Republicans likewise have attested to Reynolds’ role as a “full partner” or “active partner” in running state government during nearly six and a half years as lieutenant governor.

But when Democratic State Representative Chuck Isenhart recently requested communications with the governor’s office pertaining to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, staff for Reynolds informed him that “our office cannot reach back and review and release records from the previous administration.”

Summer wildflowers are coming on strong now. On native or restored prairies, you may find cup plants or compass plants in bloom, along with yellow coneflowers, purple coneflowers, rattlesnake master, blazing star, black-eyed Susan, partridge pea, and several kinds of milkweed, including common, swamp, butterfly, or whorled. Along wooded trails, the purple, star-shaped blossoms of American bellflower are a frequent sight.

This week’s featured plant typically starts blooming in the late spring; in most parts of Iowa, the flowers are gone by July. Canada anemone (Anemone canadensis) is also known as meadow anemone, round-leaf thimbleweed, or windflower. This member of the buttercup family is native to most of North America, except for states in the deep South or west of the Rocky Mountains. It can thrive in a range of usually wet habitats, such as “moist prairies, sedge meadows, openings in floodplain woodlands, woodland borders, banks of streams, and swampy areas.” I took some of the enclosed pictures along bike trails in Des Moines and Clive and others on lower ground at the Tipton Prairie in Greene County.

According to the Minnesota Wildflowers website, Canada anemone “can form sizable colonies via spreading rhizomes.” The Friends of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden site advises, “In the home garden it can make a good ground cover beneath trees and shrubs but in a restricted setting it needs control due to its spreading habit. For full flowering potential, it needs a mostly sunny area.” Likewise, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s site notes that this plant “can become quite aggressive in too favorable conditions.”

Thomas Heckroth joined the field of Democratic challengers to Representative Rod Blum in Iowa’s first Congressional district yesterday, calling for policies that “start investing in people” to create an “economy that values work more than wealth.”

Heckroth has been considering the race for several months. On his first day as a candidate, he stopped in Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, and Waverly, talking about his vision and criticizing Blum’s votes for the Republican health care bill and for rolling back key financial reforms in the law known as Dodd-Frank.

Before Heckroth launched his website and released an announcement video, Iowa political reporters heard he was running for Congress from an Abby Finkenauer press release, which portrayed her newest primary rival as not Iowan enough.

In another display of dominance intended to show there will be no serious competition in the Republican gubernatorial primary, Governor Kim Reynolds’ campaign announced today that U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst will join Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey as state co-chairs.

Curt Hanson won the most important Iowa legislative special election of the last decade. So it’s fitting that the election to replace the Iowa House Democrat, who passed away last month after a long battle with cancer, is shaping up to be our state’s most consequential special legislative race in years.

What happens here on August 8 won’t determine the outcome of Iowa’s 2018 elections but could have political repercussions beyond the three counties in House district 82.

Former Iowa Democratic Party executive director Troy Price will seek the state chair position, he confirmed this afternoon. I enclose below the e-mail Price sent to State Central Committee members, who will elect Derek Eadon’s successor on July 22. Excerpt:

I have previously served as Executive Director of IDP, where among other things I developed and managed an $8 million coordinated campaign – the largest non-presidential coordinated campaign in Iowa’s history. My state leadership roles also include two presidential campaigns, staring with President Obama’s re-election in 2012, building and nurturing donor and organizational relationships all across the state. I have developed and managed communications for two Democratic Governors. Plus, I ran One Iowa, the State’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, during a time of great challenge following the loss in 2010 of three Supreme Court justices who supported the Varnum decision.

The biggest challenge for Price over the next two weeks will be winning over State Central Committee members elected by delegates who favored Bernie Sanders for president. Some Sanders supporters retain strong anti-establishment feelings, and Price was Hillary Clinton’s political director here before the 2016 caucuses. I have not heard of any “Berniecrat” planning to run for chair, though. During the last leadership contest, Blair Lawton had the most support from the Sanders wing on the State Central Committee, followed by Kim Weaver. Neither Lawton nor Weaver is seeking the position now.

Julie Stauch is the only other confirmed candidate to lead the Iowa Democratic Party. Bill Brauch told me this afternoon, “I have withdrawn as a chair candidate, for my own health reasons.” Kurt Meyer is still considering another bid for party chair.

For the last several months, Price has been running State Representative Todd Prichard’s gubernatorial campaign. Going forward, John Davis will manage day-to-day operations for Prichard, and Jesse Harris will be a policy adviser.

UPDATE: Bob Krause joined Stauch and Price at a forum organized by the Iowa Democratic Party’s Veterans Caucus in Waterloo on July 8. Krause was one of eight candidates who campaigned for the party’s top job last winter; I posted more background on him here.

Meanwhile, Meyer told Bleeding Heartland on July 9 that he has decided against running for state party chair again.

I looked long and hard at what the Party needs and what I could do to be helpful. I engaged in conversations with a number of people, mostly people inside the Party, activists, candidates, etc. I urged Troy Price to run for the Chair position and am very pleased that he’s seeking the post. I decided the best way for me to be of service is to do everything I can to help the Party’s efforts to raise money… that’s what I’ll be doing for the foreseeable future. I’ve agreed to head up a statewide Finance Committee. And although I agreed to this post when the previous Chair was in place, I am very eager to work with our new incoming Party Chair.

Only 27 percent of Iowans support the Senate Republican proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, according to a recent Public Policy Polling survey. By a 20-point margin, respondents said Senator Joni Ernst “should fix and improve our current health care law” rather than “continue trying to pass the Republican plan to repeal and replace it” when Congress goes back to work after the July 4 recess.

Those numbers reflect answers given before respondents had heard any negative messages about specific provisions in the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which Senate leaders hope to bring up for a vote soon.

Governor Kim Reynolds appears unlikely to be able to balance Iowa’s budget for the fiscal year that just ended without calling a special legislative session. The last time Iowa lawmakers needed to come back after adjournment to fix the budget was in 2002, when the country was in a recession that had begun the previous year.

This year’s huge revenue shortfalls are happening during a time of economic expansion, the result of overly optimistic planning and business tax breaks that turned out to be much more costly than officials predicted.

Although today’s featured plant is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, I’d never seen Prairie redroot (Ceanothus herbaceus) before my first visit to Tipton Prairie in Greene County. Sometimes known as narrow-leaved New Jersey tea, inland New Jersey tea, Jersey tea, or simply redroot, this species thrives in relatively dry habitats, especially “upland woods, prairies, barrens.”

I took all of the enclosed pictures at Tipton Prairie, a never-plowed, four-acre “unique remnant,” during the last week of May. Prairie redroot flowers “about a month earlier” than its relative, New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus). I’ve been told that in Iowa, New Jersey tea plants rarely bloom before June, while redroot typically blooms in May.

Fun fact: Ceanothus species “can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere.”

Editor’s note: If you are looking for news about Theresa Greenfield’s 2020 candidacy for U.S. Senate, those stories are archived here. She launched her Senate campaign in June 2019.

Promising to “stand up for Iowa’s families, farms and future,” Theresa Greenfield became the fourth declared Democratic candidate in the third Congressional district today. I enclose below her announcement, which includes a bio of the former urban planner who is now president of a real estate company. Her campaign also launched a website and Facebook page and is on Twitter @GreenfieldIowa.

Greenfield has been attending local Democratic and progressive advocacy events for the past several months. Speaking to roughly 100 activists at the West Des Moines Democrats’ picnic on July 3, she described her upbringing on a farm as well as her experience as a young widowed mother after her husband died in a workplace accident. Without Social Security and workers’ compensation benefits, she would have been unable to support her family and go back to earn the degrees that allowed her to become successful in the business world. If elected to Congress, Greenfield said, she would fight to preserve safety net programs and for policies to promote good jobs, access to health care, education, and environmental protection.

Matt Paul has decided against seeking to lead the Iowa Democratic Party for the next election cycle, he told Bleeding Heartland on July 3.

During the action-packed legislative session, I never got around to writing about the bill making fireworks sales legal in Iowa for the first time in 79 years. Even if you hadn’t heard about the change in state law, you’ve probably noticed more fireworks going off in your neighborhood at all hours of the night lately, or seen complaints about the phenomenon on your social media feeds. Although numerous local ordinances restrict the use of fireworks to a short window on or close to the 4th of July, many enthusiasts either don’t know or don’t care. I haven’t heard of many people being fined for ignoring those rules.

I’m no fan of do-it-yourself fireworks, which can be triggering for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Many veterans say unexpected or “random” explosions near their homes are more upsetting than large municipal fireworks displays, which happen at predictable times.

Amateur fireworks also cause many preventable injuries. So far this year, a Davenport teenager lost a hand, and a woman in Shueyville has third-degree burns after “a multi-shot box misfired sending a projectile” into her lap. Her four-week-old infant was lucky to escape with only cuts and a broken leg after the quick-thinking mom “tossed the baby aside before the firework exploded.”

Iowa’s long ban on fireworks sales was inspired by major fires, in particular the 1931 blaze that destroyed downtown Spencer. When House members debated Senate File 489 in April, Democratic State Representative Tim Kacena warned about incidents he had seen as a firefighter in Sioux City. Already this year, amateur fireworks have caused several serious fires, one burning down an abandoned farm house near a friend’s residence in Wayne County.

Support for the fireworks bill didn’t fall strictly along party lines. After the jump I’ve posted the Iowa House and Senate roll calls, so you can find out whom to credit or blame, depending on your perspective. This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

For those interested in the events that made July 4 a day worth celebrating, I recommend a trip Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was drafted, approved, and signed in 1776. My family recently traveled there for the first time. The highlight was the phenomenal Museum of the American Revolution, possibly the best historical museum I’ve ever seen. Plan to spend at least three or four hours there to make the most of the exhibits.

The National Constitution Center is also worth at least a half-day. My favorite parts were the temporary exhibit on the rise and fall of Prohibition, a permanent display featuring books that inspired the founding fathers, and an interactive feature (accessible on the center’s website) showing the influences on each amendment in the Bill of Rights. My kids’ favorite part of the Constitution Center was an area where you can vote for past presidents after reading genuine campaign statements about ten issues, not attached to either candidate’s name.

Boone City Council member Steven Ray announced on July 1 that he will run for governor next year as a Republican. The third declared GOP candidate promised to be “a law and order governor” and said his experience in government and public safety would make him an effective chief executive. He also lambasted Iowa’s new law gutting most collective bargaining rights for public employees.

Davenport City Council Alderman Mike Matson announced on Facebook a few minutes ago that he is suspending his gubernatorial bid, having realized “my grass roots campaign will not raise the millions necessary to run a highly competitive race.” Rich Leopold ended his campaign for similar reasons in early June.

I hadn’t had a chance to interview Matson yet. His official biography is on the campaign’s Facebook page. Pat Rynard profiled the Army veteran a few months ago for Iowa Starting Line.

Matson wrote today, “I wish the best of luck to the terrific candidates still in the race. We must elect one of these fine individuals our next Governor.” His departure leaves five declared Democratic candidates. In alphabetical order, they are:

Nate Boulton (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Andy McGuire (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Jon Neiderbach (website, Twitter, Facebook)
John Norris (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Todd Prichard (website, Twitter, Facebook)

Three other Democrats are exploring gubernatorial campaigns and likely to announce in the coming months:

Cathy Glasson (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Fred Hubbell (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Ross Wilburn (Twitter, Facebook)

Glasson has been much more active than Hubbell on social media and at Democratic events since both candidates announced their exploratory campaigns in May. Wilburn, the latest to form a committee for a gubernatorial race, has no website yet. He spoke to Holly Hines of the Iowa City Press-Citizen about his plans and key issues.

Secretary of State Paul Pate announced today that he will not share “personal voter information” with the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Rather, his office will provide voter list data that are public records “if a request is made that complies with Iowa law.”

Iowa’s supposedly “efficient and convenient” process for regaining the franchise after a felony conviction resulted in Governor Terry Branstad restoring voting rights to only 206 people over nearly six and a half years.

More than 50,000 others remain unable to vote, probably for the rest of their lives.

Derek Eadon announced this morning that he resigning as Iowa Democratic Party state chair, having recently been diagnosed with “Trigeminal Neuralgia, a painful but non-lethal ailment that requires radiation procedures over the summer.” I enclose below the full text of an e-mail Eadon sent to Iowa Democratic Party county chairs and State Central Committee members.

About fifty State Central Committee members will elect Eadon’s successor on July 22. I have reached out to the other seven Democrats who ran for state party chair in January.

Sounding more like a Republican loyalist than a hard-nosed fiscal analyst, State Auditor Mary Mosiman told reporters this week that Iowa’s budget for the year beginning July 1 is “stable” and “responsible.”

Mosiman also asserted that Iowa has “practically eliminated using one-time revenue sources for ongoing expenditures,” even though Governor Kim Reynolds recently confirmed the state will need to dip into reserve funds a second time to cover a third major revenue shortfall during the current fiscal year.

While speculating on why Iowa’s revenues have fallen well below projections, Mosiman echoed excuses offered by leading Republican politicians, ignoring a new business tax break that has been a far more important factor.

Iowa’s self-styled “Taxpayers Watchdog” may come to regret staking her credibility on the wisdom of GOP budget planning.

Republican candidate Jon Jacobsen, an attorney and former weekly radio host, won yesterday’s special election to represent Iowa House district 22 with 1,069 votes, about 44 percent, according to final unofficial results. Carol Forristall, who filed as an independent candidate after losing at the GOP special nominating convention, placed second with 803 votes (33 percent).

Almost all of the 465 write-in votes (19 percent) were presumably for the Democratic candidate Ray Stevens, who failed to submit his nominating papers on time. The Pottawattamie County Auditor’s Office will confirm the write-in results today, Mike Brownlee reported for the Omaha World-Herald. Libertarian Bryan Jack Holder received 98 votes (4 percent) in the special election.

Iowa’s Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst say they are “continuing to carefully look through the revised health care discussion draft” released by Senate Republican leaders last week. Iowans who have called the senators’ offices are likewise hearing from staffers that Grassley and Ernst have not decided whether to support the GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

I suspect Iowa’s senators would rubber-stamp any GOP “health care” bill Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brings to the floor, for several reasons:

• None of the Washington-based reporters on this beat include Grassley or Ernst on their lists of Republican senators who may not support the bill.

• Reports speculating about special deals GOP Senate leaders may offer to lock down votes don’t refer to any additional spending geared toward Iowa.

• Neither Grassley nor Ernst made time to meet with Iowa hospital leaders who lobbied against the bill on a trip to Washington last week.

• Neither Grassley nor Ernst has bucked the party line on any important Senate vote that I can recall.

For now, let’s take Iowa’s senators at their word: they are still undecided and seeking input from constituents. If Grassley and Ernst intend to keep promises they’ve been making on health care policy, they need not spend any more time deliberating. They have ample reasons to vote against the Orwellian-named Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA).

Non-partisan analysis indicates that if this bill becomes law, tens of millions of Americans–including hundreds of thousands of Iowans–will have worse health insurance coverage or no coverage at all.

UPDATE: Charleston’s dismissal was unrelated to his recent Facebook posts. Scroll down to read a document the Polk County Sheriff’s Office provided on June 26, citing incidents of “insubordination,” “neglect of duty and disharmony,” and a Human Resources department report detailing “gender bias in the workplace.”

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office fired Deputy Sheriff Dan Charleston on June 23, Linh Ta reported for the Des Moines Register. Officials declined to state the reason for his termination, citing the possibility of an appeal or lawsuit.

Charleston had been under investigation over a pair of personal Facebook posts disparaging Islam. I’ve enclosed a screen shot of one post below. Iowa Informer has an image of the second, which Charleston apparently deleted.

As Ron Corbett seeks the GOP nomination for governor, his support of project labor agreements in Cedar Rapids will be a leading point of attack by Republicans supporting Governor Kim Reynolds. Corbett’s stance put him on a collision course with Governor Terry Branstad in 2011. The mayor explained his reasoning in chapter 25 of his memoir Beyond Promises and in an interview with Bleeding Heartland last week.

For years, I thought today’s featured plant was a European invader, but cow parsnip (Heracleum maximum) is native to most of the U.S. and Canada.

Sometimes known as common cowparsnip, these plants are easy to spot in the late spring and early summer, in part because of their large clusters of small white flowers. They also tend to be taller than anything growing nearby. (By the late summer, other woodland plants may reach similar heights.) Cow parsnip “can be found in both high quality natural areas and disturbed habitats,” but I’ve mostly seen them in the woods. I took most of these pictures near trails in Des Moines and Clive in early June.

Cow parsnip is “the native counterpart to the highly invasive non-native Giant Hogweed.” It grows taller than the non-native wild parsnip, which has yellow flowers and should be avoided unless you want to experience a horrible blistering rash.

Anna Ryon announced on Facebook this evening that she is suspending her Democratic campaign in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett finds it “disappointing” and “short-sighted” that neither the Iowa legislature nor the Branstad/Reynolds administration developed a plan earlier this year to address the collapse in Iowa’s individual health insurance market. By his account, state lawmakers and executive branch officials knew insurers were likely to stop selling individual policies for 2018 and should have developed “some type of backstop” instead of waiting for Congress to act.

Corbett plans to launch a Republican campaign for governor later today. He commented on Iowa’s potential health coverage crisis during a telephone interview with Bleeding Heartland last week.

When Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett kicks off his Republican campaign for governor on June 20, tax reform will be a major part of his “new game plan for Iowa.”

Iowa has no shortage of Republican politicians seeking to lower taxes for those with high incomes or replace a progressive income tax structure with a flatter tax. State House and Senate leaders have promised to push for income tax cuts next year, and in her first speech as governor last month, Kim Reynolds identified “reforming Iowa’s tax structure” as her “first priority.”

But Corbett frames the case for tax reform differently from the usual GOP rhetoric about spurring investment or putting money back in people’s pockets. In a wide-ranging interview last week, the mayor repeatedly called for addressing inequities in the tax code, which now favor the wealthiest Iowans over middle-class taxpayers. He also warned it would be “a big mistake” for Reynolds to lead an “exclusively Republican” push for tax changes next year.

Who knew that when you tell a state agency leader to save another $1.3 million somehow, he might cut some important programs and services? Not State Representative Dave Heaton, the Republican chair of the Iowa legislature’s Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee.

Who knew that when you impeach a mayor using a kangaroo court proceeding, a judge might order the mayor reinstated while her appeal is pending? Not Muscatine City Council members.

Follow me after the jump for more on those stories. This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

I’m also interested to know what readers think about Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen’s request to waive certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act in order to bring Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield back to Iowa’s individual insurance market for 2018. Elements of the “stopgap” measure violate federal law; health care law expert Timothy Jost told the Des Moines Register’s Tony Leys that some parts of Ommen’s proposal are “extremely problematic” and not likely “doable.” Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Anna Wilde Mathews and Louise Radnofsky saw the Iowa developments as “a key test of the ability to modify the [Affordable Care Act] through executive authority.” Slate’s Jordan Weissmann agreed.

“Our state has been hijacked by a group of people who have absolutely no interest in making the state better. If you’re not like them, they don’t care about you.” With those words, Dan Nieland officially launched his Democratic campaign for Iowa House district 30 this week.

Although rising Republican star Zach Nunn won re-election here comfortably last year, this seat encompassing much of eastern Polk County could become a competitive race in 2018.

A small group of Senate Republicans are writing a new version of the American Health Care Act in unprecedented secrecy and with a large dose of deception, hoping to attract minimal public attention before a quick Senate vote.

Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley hasn’t seen the bill. He has no idea whether the revised legislation, like the House-approved AHCA, would cause “people of all ages and incomes” to lose coverage and make insurance several times more expensive for older or sicker Americans. He can’t be sure it will keep promises he has repeatedly made to Iowans, such as “The American people deserve a long-term solution that gives them more choice for less cost.”

But Grassley’s not hung up on small details.

In a brief interview with Jeff Stein of Vox, he defended the bill he hasn’t read, claiming it would offer “certainty.”

Today’s featured plant was a new addition to my “life list” during a recent visit to Tipton Prairie in Greene County. Yellow star grass (Hypoxis hirsuta), sometimes known as common goldstar, is native to most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. I’d seen pictures of the small yellow flowers in books and on the Iowa Wildflower Report Facebook group, but I don’t think I had ever seen one in person until one of my companions called me over to a slope near the highest point of the four-acre prairie.

Top staffers for Governor Terry Branstad knew more than a month ahead of time that Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller had determined Kim Reynolds would not have the authority to name a new lieutenant governor after becoming Iowa’s head of state.

Records released by the Iowa Attorney General’s office undercut numerous public statements by Reynolds and other Republican leaders, which alleged or implied Miller had blindsided the administration with a sudden reversal of his earlier view.

Documents support Miller’s comments on May 1 about the exhaustive legal and historical research informing his 23-page response to independent State Senator David Johnson. Despite accusations made by many GOP politicians, records reveal no effort by any Democratic officials to influence Miller’s views on succession questions.

On the contrary: if the attorney general faced any political pressure to change his stance on Reynolds’ constitutional authority, available information suggests that pressure came from the governor’s office.

The rumors were true: Drake University Law Professor Jerry Foxhoven will be the new Iowa Department of Human Services director, effective tomorrow.

The May 31 press release announcing Chuck Palmer’s retirement linked to a job listing for the DHS director position, to close on June 11. I would be surprised if Governor Kim Reynolds interviewed or seriously considered anyone else for this job, given the rapid turnaround. I never heard a rumor about any candidate other than Foxhoven.

I enclose below the full text of today’s announcement, including background on the new director. Foxhoven has a lot of relevant experience for the job, and I wish him the best of luck as he attempts to lead a department where big mid-year spending cuts will give way to even lower funding levels for the next fiscal year. Morale is reportedly poor among DHS workers, in part because of too-large caseloads. Medicaid privatization has proved disastrous for many vulnerable Iowans and service providers.

Speaking of which, Disability Rights Iowa filed suit yesterday against Reynolds and former DHS Director Palmer, seeking “to halt discriminatory cuts in services to 15,000 Iowans with serious disabilities,” Tony Leys and Jason Clayworth reported for the Des Moines Register. Roxanne Conlin is helping the plaintiffs, who will seek certification for a class action.

UPDATE: Lee Rood and Tony Leys interviewed Foxhoven for the Des Moines Register. I posted excerpts below, but you should click through to read the whole thing.

Iowa State University announced today that it sold the Cirrus SR22 airplane mostly used by former President Steven Leath for $450,000.

Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker may seek the Democratic nomination in Iowa’s first Congressional district, he confirmed yesterday to Bleeding Heartland.

I missed the news last month that the Rev. Dr. Paul Knupp Jr. plans to seek the Democratic nomination in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

The U.S. Senate is fast-tracking a vote on its “health care” bill–more aptly described as a trillion-dollar tax giveaway for the rich, paid for by spending cuts that will cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance. Older people and those with low incomes, especially people on Medicaid, are at greatest risk of losing access to health care.

Senate leaders are sticking to the plan of having no public hearings on the revised American Health Care Act, no committee markup, and no amendment process. An all-male group of thirteen Republican senators–not including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley or Joni Ernst–are drafting its terms in secret. (UPDATE/CORRECTION: Ernst has been added to the informal working group.) Other Republican senators have only been briefed on progress. Leaders will send the unpublished bill to the Congressional Budget Office, planning to bring the legislation straight to the Senate floor this month, possibly with only 24-48 hours for the public to learn about its provisions before senators vote.

Calls to U.S. Senate and House offices have recently returned to “normal” levels from before President Donald Trump was inaugurated. That needs to change immediately.

Leading Iowa Republicans appeared to be in a competition yesterday for the most shameful way to react to former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Should they:

A. Defend President Donald Trump for demanding personal loyalty from a senior law enforcement official;

B. Focus on alleged wrongdoing by Comey, not by the president who “hoped” the FBI would drop a criminal investigation into his former national security adviser;

C. Declare the controversy over Trump’s involvement with Russia settled; or

D. Hide from reporters seeking comment on the biggest news story of the week?

Iowa’s three Republicans in the U.S. House joined almost all of their GOP colleagues today to approve a bill that would “devastate financial regulation.” The Financial Choice Act would “dismantle” many provisions in the 2010 banking reform law known as Dodd-Frank. It passed by 233 votes to 186 (roll call), with Representatives Rod Blum (IA-01), David Young (IA-03), and Steve King (IA-04) among the 233 Republicans who voted yes. Just one Republican joined 185 House Democrats, including Iowa’s Dave Loebsack (IA-02), to oppose the bill.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is spinning this bill as a rescue of “Main Street America,” but its key beneficiaries would not be small banks, and its provisions could make millions of consumers and investors into sitting ducks for Wall Street abuses.

I’m excited to publish another series of photographs by Eileen Miller, who has contributed about a dozen spectacular editions of Iowa wildflower Wednesday over the years. For her first guest post here in 2017, she chose to feature Alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii) in the family Saxifragaceae, which she describes as “an intriguing native, perennial wildflower of tall grass prairies.”

Eileen took all of the photographs enclosed below in April at Tipton Prairie, a 4-acre virgin prairie in Greene County. I took the picture at the top of this post during my first-ever visit to Tipton Prairie last month.

June is a perfect time to be out in nature, but a couple of cautionary notes: be sure to put on insect repellent if you go looking for wildflowers in Iowa woods, prairies, or meadows. Also, watch where you step, because 2017 seems to be a banner year for a few dangerous plants: poison ivy, poison hemlock, and wild parsnip. I don’t know whether the mild winter or the timing of the spring rains were responsible.

The first Democrat to launch a campaign for governor became the first to leave the race today. Rich Leopold cited “difficulties in fundraising and talking about myself” and coming to learn “first-hand that electoral politics in Iowa is largely controlled by a small group [of] people.” Ultimately, he concluded “the reality of an outsider mounting a winning campaign in Iowa is slim.” I enclose the full text of his Facebook post below.

Leopold’s departure was not unexpected. Until this morning, his campaign’s Facebook page hadn’t been updated since April. He had missed some recent Democratic events, including the Boone County Democrats’ “Picnic for the People” on June 3, at which most of the other candidates spoke. He pledged today to keep working for “cleaner water, equal and fair treatment of all people, resilience to climate change, strong and sustainable rural economies, compassion in our mental and physical health systems, and CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM!”

In alphabetical order, the remaining declared Democratic candidates for governor are:

Nate Boulton (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Andy McGuire (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Jon Neiderbach (website, Twitter, Facebook)
John Norris (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Todd Prichard (website, Twitter, Facebook)

Three others are exploring gubernatorial campaigns and likely to announce in the coming months:

Cathy Glasson (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Fred Hubbell (website, Twitter, Facebook)
Mike Matson (Twitter, Facebook)

Mike Carberry, who had considered this race, confirmed a few weeks ago that he will run for re-election as Johnson County supervisor next year instead. Scroll to the end of this post to read his statement.

Film-maker Brent Roske had floated the idea of running for governor as an independent while contesting both major-party primaries. The Secretary of State’s Office says he will have to choose one path and can’t pursue them all simultaneously.

Declaring that she is “east Des Moines scrappy” rather than “pretend Iowa nice,” Heather Ryan joined the field of Democratic challengers to Representative David Young in Iowa’s third Congressional district.

Iowa’s new medical cannabis law goes into effect on July 1, but “obtaining the medicine will be difficult and manufacturers said it’s unclear if the state’s effort will be viable,” Linley Sanders reported for the Associated Press this week. Her story illuminated a few reasons the law won’t help most of the people who could potentially benefit from access to cannabis derivatives.

Iowa lawmakers closed out the session with all-nighter so as not to adjourn without doing something on this issue. The previous medical cannabis law, adopted in similar last-minute fashion three years earlier, was due to expire this summer. Even for people with seizure disorders, the only conditions for which cannabis oil was allowed, the old law was too limited and unworkable.

As the new law’s defects become more obvious, we need to remember that most state legislators favored a better alternative. House Republicans thwarted their efforts.

Thomas Heckroth may join the Democratic field in Iowa’s first Congressional district, he confirmed to Bleeding Heartland on June 4.

Democratic candidate Ray Stevens will not appear on the ballot for the June 27 special election in Iowa House district 22. He missed the deadline for filing paperwork with the Iowa Secretary of State’s office.

The episode should be a wake-up call for Democratic leaders at the county and state level.

Concerned about her personal safety, her health insurance, and ability to care for her ailing mother, Kim Weaver is ending her campaign against Representative Steve King in Iowa’s fourth Congressional district and moving to Des Moines, she announced on Facebook Saturday.

Former Governor Terry Branstad’s chief of staff Michael Bousselot appears to be out of the running as a possible Republican candidate in Iowa’s second Congressional district.

Promising to stand up to powerful interests and raise her voice for those who are hurting, small business owner Cindy Axne announced this morning that she will run for Congress as a Democrat in Iowa’s third Congressional district. Her campaign is online here as well as on Facebook and Twitter. A Des Moines native, Axne runs a digital design firm with her husband. From 2005 to 2014, she worked in state government for the Department of Administrative Services, Department of Management, and Department of Natural Resources.

I enclose below more background on the candidate and today’s news release. Axne has never run for office before, but she has attended Democratic events around the state this year as a surrogate for gubernatorial candidate Rich Leopold.

Women in Iowa have almost no options for terminating a pregnancy after 20 weeks, under a law former Governor Terry Branstad signed a few weeks ago. Proponents have claimed the measure would “save lives immediately.”

In reality, the law will cause more pregnant women to have life-threatening health problems, and will add to the suffering of parents whose babies have no chance of survival.

After last week’s rare and spectacular featured plant (Shooting star), Iowa wildflower Wednesday returns today to the lowly and commonplace. Aunt Lucy (Ellisia nyctelea), also known as Waterpod, is native to most of the U.S. and Canada. Like wild chervil, it doesn’t stand out among other plants that bloom around the same time, so you might not notice its flowers or fruit. The Illinois Wildflowers site says of this plant,

Aunt Lucy is an oddball member of the Waterleaf family. It is not very showy and often omitted from many wildflower guides. Aunt Lucy occurs in two quite different habitats: deciduous woodlands and disturbed areas where the ground is bare or lightly mulched. In the former habitat, it is one of our native spring wildflowers, while in the latter habitat it is a minor weed of nurseries and bare open ground in cities.

I took most of the pictures enclosed below near my home in Windsor Heights. Lora Conrad, a talented photographer and wildflower enthusiast, kindly gave me permission to post a few of her pictures, taken near the Des Moines River in Van Buren County.

A second candidate is seeking the Democratic nomination in Iowa’s first Congressional district, a top-tier target for Democrats nationally. Two other potential contenders confirmed today that they haven’t ruled out joining the field later this year.

Iowa Department of Human Services Director Chuck Palmer is retiring effective June 16, Governor Kim Reynolds announced today. Critics including Democratic State Senator Matt McCoy have called on Palmer to resign for months, charging that inadequate staffing at DHS facilitated more suffering and premature deaths among abused children. The department’s handling of Medicaid privatization has also drawn criticism. Despite Palmer’s promises to hold the line, the DHS agreed to pay private insurance companies more for managing Medicaid. In addition, DHS officials have downplayed numerous, ongoing reports of those companies cutting back on health care services and failing to reimburse providers promptly or adequately.

In keeping with Governor Terry Branstad’s playbook when Teresa Wahlert ended her disastrous tenure at Iowa Workforce Development, Reynolds didn’t acknowledge any problems with Palmer’s management of the DHS today. On the contrary, she and acting Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg praised Palmer’s work in the official press release, enclosed in full below.

Republicans and Democrats selected their candidates last night for the June 27 special election in Iowa House district 22, covering a small portion of Council Bluffs and most of Pottawattamie County outside that city (see map above).

For many Americans who (like me) have not served in the military, the three-day weekend at the end of May marks the unofficial beginning of summer activities. Forgetting the original purpose of this day is itself a long tradition, University of Oregon American history professor Matthew Dennis told NPR two years ago: “In 1888, even before it was declared a national holiday, President Grover Cleveland was criticized for going fishing on Memorial Day instead of, you know, visiting graves or participating in other sorts of rites.”

Lately some veterans have been raising awareness that Memorial Day differs from Veterans Day, the national holiday established after World War I to honor all who have done military service.

Governor Kim Reynolds took acting Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg on a whirlwind tour late last week to Osceola, Mason City, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, and Gregg’s home town of Hawarden (Sioux County). Hundreds of people showed up for the Hawarden event; much smaller crowds turned out at the other venues. At each stop, Reynolds and Gregg praised former Governor Terry Branstad, and Reynolds repeated the four key goals she had laid out in her first speech as the state’s top official.

Early signs point to a highly political rather than policy-oriented Reynolds administration. The new governor’s top appointees are veterans of many Republican campaigns. Chief of staff Jake Ketzner worked on Branstad’s campaign in 2010 and managed the governor’s 2014 re-election bid; in between, he ran Representative Steve King’s 2012 campaign against Christie Vilsack. Deputy chief of staff Tim Albrecht spent most of his career as a spin doctor for GOP candidates or elected officials before joining a Republican-oriented political communications firm in late 2013. You don’t put guys like this in charge of your office if you’re a “policy wonk” or interested in reaching out to constituencies that felt ignored during Branstad’s tenure. These choices suggest that Reynolds plans to wage partisan warfare, day in and day out.

Over at Iowa Starting Line, Pat Rynard commented on how the Reynolds administration is already blurring the lines between official state events and 2018 campaign activities. Expect much more of this in the months to come.

Speaking of political games, progressive activists put up a parody site at ReynoldsGregg.org, pushing the message, “Kim Reynolds and Adam Gregg are Iowa’s new team, but unfortunately they have the same old failed priorities” (see screen shot below). Rynard recalled that GOP operatives including Albrecht relentlessly mocked Jack Hatch’s campaign for making the same mistake in 2014. At that time, quite a few of Iowa’s political reporters wrote stories about Republicans grabbing HatchVernon.com and the @HatchVernon Twitter handle. So far, those media outlets have not publicized the same incompetence on the part of the Reynolds team.

Other passages worth noting: earlier this month, the Iowa Board of Regents chose Michael Richards as president and Patricia Cownie and president pro-tem, replacing Bruce Rastetter and Katie Mulholland, whose terms ended April 30. Rastetter opted not to seek reappointment to the board, tacitly acknowledging that Iowa Senate Democrats would never have allowed his confirmation. Mulholland sought another six-year term, but for reasons that remain unclear, Branstad passed her over. Regent Larry McKibben had expressed interest in the board presidency, but he gave up without a fight and formally nominated Richards. I didn’t have a preference between McKibben and Richards; from my perspective, neither could possibly do worse in that job than Rastetter. This weekend, the Ditchwalk blog took an in-depth look at Richards: part 1 focused on his background and how he got the top job on the board, while part 2 looked at his early actions in the new position, speculating about whether Richards can fix the board’s “colossal credibility problem” after years of administrative abuses by Rastetter.

In March, Sean Bagniewski won the election to succeed Tom Henderson, the long-serving chair of the Polk County Democrats. Bagniewski announced on May 23 that former Senator Tom Harkin gave his blessing to have Iowa’s largest county Democratic organization hold an annual “Steak Fry” fundraiser. The inaugural event is scheduled for September 30 at Water Works Park in Des Moines; headliners have not yet been announced. Bagniewski joked, “One of my friends asked me how it felt to land the Steak Fry. It’s like adopting a baby gorilla. Where do you put it? How’re you going to feed it? How much is this thing going to cost?”

Final note: the New Leaders Council, “a nonpartisan program to recruit, train, and promote the next generation of progressive leaders,” is holding a fundraiser in Des Moines on Thursday, June 1. Money raised will support the five-month training program for next year’s New Leaders Council fellows. Local organizers hope to attract a more diverse class and are “doing more focused outreach to underrepresented communities” with a goal of having a 60 percent non-white and 55 percent female cohort of fellows for 2018. I enclose below more details about this week’s event and the training program.

In an unusual move between the first and second years of a legislative assembly, Iowa Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix took committee chairmanships away from two members of his caucus this week. Senator Jake Chapman is the new leader of the Commerce Committee, replacing Bill Anderson. Senator Craig Johnson, who was just elected for the first time last November, now chairs the Transportation, Infrastructure, and Capitals Appropriations Subcommittee, replacing Rick Bertrand.

Dix handed the more significant demotion to Bertrand, who no longer serves on any appropriations subcommittee. Anderson’s remaining committee assignments still include a spot on one appropriations subcommittee as well as a position on the powerful Ways and Means panel.

Senate Republicans didn’t publicize the changes, which took effect on May 24, on their website or social media feeds. The snubs to Bertrand and Anderson attracted little notice amid the transfer of power from Governor Terry Branstad to Kim Reynolds. Senate GOP communications staff, Johnson, Bertrand, and Anderson did not respond to my requests for comment. When I reached Chapman by phone on May 24, he confirmed his new committee chairmanship but declined to speculate about the reasons, saying, “I don’t make those decisions.”

My first thought was that Dix punished Bertrand for throwing a bit of a tantrum (starting at the 6:12:20 mark of this video) during the final debate on Senate File 471, the bill banning almost all abortions after 20 weeks. But when senators first considered the same bill in March, Chapman had tried to suspend the rules to force a floor vote on “personhood” language. Johnson was among sixteen Republicans to support that breach of Senate protocol. Anyway, my initial hunch wouldn’t explain what Dix did to Anderson, who has never called out his GOP colleagues during a Senate floor speech, to my knowledge.

My best guess is that Bertrand and Anderson paid a price for missing too many votes this year. Follow me after the jump for details.

In one of his final bill signings, former Governor Terry Branstad disregarded almost all the public input his office received regarding the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. Last month, Republican state lawmakers voted to redirect revenues from a fertilizer fee that had provided the bulk of the center’s funding for 30 years. They zeroed out a separate line item which had covered most of the center’s other operating costs.

After GOP legislators ignored feedback from hundreds of Iowans who came to the Capitol or submitted written comments in support of the Leopold Center, attention turned to Branstad, since the governor has the power to veto line items from budget bills. Legal counsel Colin Smith informed me today that Branstad’s office “received approximately 907 emails” on this subject, of which only two favored eliminating the Leopold Center. More than 900 e-mails and “all but a handful” of more than 500 phone calls on this issue supported maintaining the center.

In other words, at least 99.8 percent of more than 1,400 constituent contacts urged Branstad to allow the Leopold Center to continue its work.

However, Branstad vetoed only two line items, which would have removed language about the Leopold Center from Iowa Code. He left in place provisions that redirected most of the center’s funding. Some income from the ISU Foundation remains, but that is insufficient to fund new research on topics such as water quality, conservation practices, soil erosion, and local food systems.

The ambush on the Leopold Center was a favor to corporate agricultural interests, which sought to divert fertilizer tax revenue to ISU’s narrowly-focused Nutrient Research Center, where agribusiness will likely have more control over the agenda. No one even pretended to make a substantive case for defunding the Leopold Center. Yet Branstad reduced a respected institution to a shell, ignoring almost every Iowan who appealed to him.

Before being sworn in as governor yesterday, Kim Reynolds told Barbara Rodriguez of the Associated Press, “I’m going to travel the state and I’m going to go into communities and I’m going to talk to Iowans and I’m going to listen. […] What are we missing? What are we doing right?”

A key test for Reynolds: will she–unlike her mentor–be willing to change course when Iowans overwhelmingly oppose her administration’s policy? Or will she “listen” politely, then have staff follow up with a form letter after she does whatever Republican ideologues or business lobby groups ask of her?

Seeking to avoid a lawsuit, Governor Kim Reynolds has picked State Public Defender Adam Gregg as her lieutenant governor to “serve in an acting capacity, fulfilling all duties of the lieutenant governor’s office through the January 2019 inauguration.”

Attorney General Tom Miller issued a formal opinion this month stating that Reynolds will not have the authority to name a new lieutenant governor. Reynolds and many other Republicans attacked Miller for what they called a “partisan” decision, but apparently the new governor doesn’t want to roll the dice on how the Iowa Supreme Court would resolve this question.

Instead, Gregg will have the title of lieutenant governor and the salary associated with the position. According to the governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff Tim Albrecht, “Gregg will ‘operate’ the office of lieutenant governor, but not actually ‘hold’ that office.”

The Reynolds administration acknowledges that Gregg will have no place in the line of succession. Under Article IV, Section 19 of the Iowa Constitution, if there is a vacancy in the governor’s office and the lieutenant governor becomes “incapable of performing the duties pertaining to the office of governor,” the Iowa Senate president “shall act as governor,” with the Iowa House speaker next in line to hold those powers.

I sought comment from Miller and others on whether the state constitution allows someone someone to hold the title of lieutenant governor while serving “in an acting capacity.” (The constitution does not discuss that concept, as far as I can tell.) Miller will hold a press conference later this morning, after which I will update this post. Gary Dickey, who researched these questions as legal counsel for Governor Tom Vilsack in 2004, said via e-mail today, “I know of no limitation on giving titles to employees of the office. Whether they want to call him Lieutenant, vice, or deputy means little so long as he does not attempt assume the constitutional right of succession in the event that Governor Reynolds can no longer serve.” Dickey later told the Associated Press, “As a matter of law, he’s just another staff member of the office, […] It’s a positive sign that she recognizes there are constitutional limitations to the office. I’m not sure that’s always been the case for the last six years.”

Today’s news release and background on Gregg are after the jump.

UPDATE: Miller told reporters today that the “fundamental question” in his formal opinion was related to succession questions. He said he’s “pleased” Reynolds took action today “that would not alter the succession provision,” complying with his opinion on the key constitutional question. He added that the governor can designate anyone she wants to perform certain roles on her behalf. Miller noted, “The one question that remains is the title, acting lieutenant governor. It’s a new position. It’s not a constitutional provision or position,” and it’s not part of the constitutional framework. His staff will do further research on that position. “The key fundamental question here” is who succeeds and Reynolds “complied fully” with his opinion about the Iowa Constitution. Asked whether Reynolds had ruled out any legal challenge, Miller replied that he wouldn’t “I wouldn’t go that far” to make such a “broad statement.” But making clear that Gregg is outside the line of succession “dramatically” changes the landscape for such a lawsuit.

As he said on May 1, Miller said he supports amending the state constitution to allow a lieutenant governor who assumes the governor’s office to appoint a new lieutenant governor.

Miller confirmed that no one on Reynolds’s staff consulted him about their plans. He said the governor’s senior legal counsel Ryan Koopmans called the Attorney General’s office around 9:30 this morning to inform them about the decision.

Asked to comment on Republican Party of Iowa Chair Jeff Kaufmann calling his opinion a “ridiculous partisan stunt,” the attorney general repeated that he was persuaded by the weight of the evidence, including “overwhelming” case law from other states.

Until this month, I had never seen today’s featured wildflowers “in real life.” Shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia) is as eye-catching as last week’s wild chervil is unobtrusive. Also known as prairie shooting star or pride of Ohio, the plant is native to more than 20 states east of the Rocky Mountains, but it is rarely seen outside “high-quality habitats” including prairies, upland forests, and fens.

The Illinois Wildflowers and Minnesota Wildflowers websites have botanically accurate descriptions of shooting star foliage, flowers, and seed capsules. I took all of the enclosed pictures at Rochester Cemetery in Cedar County in early May. This never-plowed patch of prairie is well worth a special trip or at least a short detour if you’re traveling along nearby I-80.

Governor Kim Reynolds promised today not to “stop working until every Iowan, no matter where they live, has the same opportunity to succeed, have a satisfying career, raise a family and have a great quality of life.”

Judging by her first speech in her new role, Reynolds has some major blind spots about her own record and the challenges facing Iowans.

The collapse of Iowa’s health insurance exchange could leave more than 70,000 people with no way to purchase individual policies for 2018.

More than half the Iowans at risk of becoming uninsured would have qualified for some services under the Iowa Family Planning Network. But our new state-run family planning program–created at great expense because Republican lawmakers and the Branstad/Reynolds administration insisted on defunding Planned Parenthood–won’t be able to accommodate an influx of patients who had been on the exchange.

Joy Corning was independent. As a state senator and lieutenant governor, she didn’t cater to social conservatives who were gaining strength in the Republican Party of Iowa during the 1980s and 1990s. She paid a price for her principles when she ran for governor in 1998 and got no support from Terry Branstad, along whose side she had served for eight years. She would have been a great governor.

Joy was empathetic. Long before she ran for office, she was a young stay-at-home mom when her husband came home from work with awful news: a woman in their community had died of complications from a back-alley abortion, leaving a husband to raise three children alone. Joy couldn’t stop thinking about that mother. The tragedy fueled her dedication to protecting reproductive rights. “Whatever the circumstances of the unintended pregnancy, we cannot experience the hardship and struggle faced by some women who make this decision. We are simply not in their shoes,” Joy wrote in a guest column for the Des Moines Register this year.

Joy was fair-minded. She was among the first prominent members of her party to support marriage equality in Iowa. During the 2010 campaign, she and former Democratic Lieutenant Governor Sally Pederson co-chaired the Justice Not Politics coalition, supporting the retention of Iowa Supreme Court justices who were under attack after striking down our state’s Defense of Marriage Act.

Joy was fact-oriented. While watching the Republican presidential debates, she was repelled by Donald Trump’s “know-it-all demeanor when he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” She came out publicly as #NeverTrump last September and shortly before the election co-authored an editorial endorsing Hillary Clinton, in part because of Trump’s “demagoguery,” “racism, nationalism, misogyny and discrimination against people with disabilities.”

Joy was committed. Some politicians leave the state after their ambitions don’t pan out, but Joy stayed in Iowa and volunteered countless hours for many causes over the last eighteen years. In her obituary, she wrote that she was “most passionate about issues related to children and families, women’s health & rights, equality and justice, education and the arts.” For friends who are inspired to make contributions in her memory, she suggested the Planned Parenthood of the Heartland Foundation, Plymouth Church Foundation, UNI Foundation, or the Des Moines Symphony Foundation. Joy was also a founding board member of 50/50 in 2020, a non-profit seeking to elect more women in Iowa, as well as a founding member of an advisory board for the University of Iowa’s center for gifted education, named in part after my mother. (Joy and my mother became friends when both served on school boards during the 1970s–Joy in Cedar Falls, my mother in West Des Moines. I didn’t get to know Joy until many years later, when I served on a fundraising committee she chaired for what was then called Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa.)

Joy was kind. Former Planned Parenthood leader Jill June recalled her motto: “If you can’t say something nice, be vague.” That approach to life wouldn’t produce good blog content, but it did make Joy a wonderful human being.

After the jump I’ve posted many other reflections on Joy Corning’s legacy. Please share your own memories in this thread.

Minutes ago the U.S. Senate confirmed Governor Terry Branstad as ambassador to China, clearing the way for Branstad to resign on Wednesday, allowing Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds to be sworn in as governor. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had unanimously approved Branstad’s nomination earlier this month, but twelve senators voted against advancing his nomination last week, and thirteen senators voted against him on the floor today. The opponents included Democrats Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont–all considered potential presidential candidates in 2020. In a list-building e-mail earlier this afternoon, Brown wrote,

Branstad is notorious for busting collective bargaining rights in his state. Legislation he signed into law will force Planned Parenthood clinics to close this summer.

How can we make an anti-labor, anti-women’s rights politician in charge of U.S. relations with a country that has large human rights problems, especially in the areas of women’s and workers’ rights.

Given how unpopular Branstad is with highly-engaged Democratic activists, a vote against confirming the governor certainly wouldn’t hurt any of these senators in the next Iowa caucus campaign.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, also a possible Democratic presidential contender, supported Branstad’s confirmation. I’ll update this post later with full details on the Senate vote once the roll call has closed and some political reaction.

UPDATE: The thirteen senators who voted against Branstad were Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Booker, Brown, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Gary Peters of Michigan, Sanders, Chuck Schumer of New York, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and Warren. All are Democrats except Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats. All represent states where organized labor is relatively strong.

SECOND UPDATE: Added below Branstad’s statement and other comments on his confirmation, as well as Senator Chuck Grassley’s speech on the Senate floor before today’s vote.

I had to laugh hearing Grassley “express my disappointment and frustration with the seemingly endless obstruction on the part of the minority.” He is bent out of shape because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had to file cloture on Branstad’s nomination:

We could have approved this nomination with just a few minutes of debate time, yet, the minority required that we use 30 hours – not because they wanted to debate the merits of the nominee, but simply to delay the business of this body.

It’s unfortunate that their delay has kept an eminently qualified individual from getting into the job to promote American interests in China sooner.

Grassley and his fellow Republicans didn’t give the eminently qualified Judge Merrick Garland even a hearing, let alone a floor vote for his nomination to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

When I learned last summer that several Waterloo police officers who had used excessive force against black residents had not been disciplined, even after one officer threw a 17-year-old boy to the ground and filed a false report about the incident, and other officers kept their jobs despite making racist remarks at a murder scene or hitting a handcuffed, immobilized suspect on the back of the head, I wondered: what does someone have to do to get fired from the Waterloo Police Department?

Last week the answer became apparent: a lot more than I would have imagined.

One officer remains on the Waterloo force even though Chief Dan Trelka determined he had abused his authority and “displayed poor judgement, unprofessionalism, a lack of competency, a lack of knowledge, a failure to conform to work standards, [and] a failure to take appropriate action”–without showing any remorse.